Sleepless in Seattle… at Web Directions Unplugged.

I arrived in Seattle yesterday for “Web Directions Unplugged”, which begins in a couple hours. Thanks to an early flight and a time-zone shift, it’s 5:30 AM (which is roughly 2:30 AM East Coast Time) and I’m wide awake brewing single cups of Starbucks in my room and getting annoyed by the looping Sheraton Starwood promo on Channel 1.

Why do I always turn on the TV and just leave it on that stupid channel? I only realize it ten minutes later when I hear the words, “Vibrant Social Spaces” for the forty-fifth time.

Anyway, I’m here for a terrific mobile conference that really couldn’t come at a better time. I recently (this past week) upgraded to Adobe Creative Suite Web Premium 5.5 and, as I’ve said before, it’s the most significant upgrade to the product that I’ve ever seen. Integrating jQuery Mobile, PhoneGap, HTML5 and CSS3, this version facilitates the creation of Mobile Web Apps like no other product I’ve ever seen. So like I said, the conference is just absolutely the best conference at the most perfect time. Billing itself as, “two groundbreaking days of practical development and design presented by leading experts in the exploding field of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript based mobile development” it’s going to be jam packed with terrific speakers, including a couple of speakers from Adobe. Greg Rewis will be speaking on “From Web to Mobile App in 60 seconds” featuring, what else, Dreamweaver CS 5.5, which I can’t wait to see.

The conference has three tracks that focus on three different aspects of mobile development. There’s a “Design Track” featuring content strategy, CSS3, UI prototyping, and touchscreen design (remember, it’s fat fingers, not tiny cursers!). The “Development Track” is going to take a look at maximizing speed and efficiency in your mobile app, HTML5 canvas, offline storage and geolocation. The last track is a “Platforms and Solutions Track” and focuses on the various mobile platforms, devices, and services. They’ll take a look at Android, iOS, and something called, “Blackberry”. Javascript frameworks and packaging technologies like jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap are also going to be featured as part of the Platforms and Solutions Track over the course of the next couple of days.

So like I said, it’s just an excellent conference that’s happening at a perfect time and I’m really excited to get started. I’m going to try and blog my thoughts about all of these technologies and platforms over the next couple of days. Rather than try to “liveblog” the event as one running post, I’m going to switch it up a bit and drop smaller posts about sessions and speakers as they inspire.